Boris Zaitsev: brief biography and work of the writer. Brief biography: Zaitsev Boris Konstantinovich Zaitsev writer emigrant works

Boris Konstantinovich Zaitsev - prose writer (10.2. (29.1.) 1881 Orel - 28.1.1972 Paris). Boris Konstantinovich was born into the family of a mining engineer and nobleman. Since 1898, Zaitsev studied at the Moscow Higher Technical School, then at the Mining Institute in St. Petersburg and at the Faculty of Law of Moscow University; none graduated. In 1901, L. Andreev published Zaitsev's first lyrical-impressionist story in the Moscow newspaper "Courier" On the road" and introduced him to the literary circle "Sreda", led by N. Teleshov.

In 1906-11 six collections of stories by Boris Zaitsev were published; by 1919 there were already seven of them. According to the author himself, the most expressive of all that he wrote before 1922 is the story " Blue star"(1918). In 1921, Boris Konstantinovich Zaitsev worked in the Moscow Writers' Book Shop; in the same year he was elected chairman of the All-Russian Writers' Union.

In June 1922 (after his arrest) he received permission to travel abroad; He lived first in Germany and Italy, and from 1924 in Paris. In Berlin, he managed - as an honorable exception - to publish his collected works in 7 volumes (1922-23). In Paris, Boris Zaitsev wrote novels and biographical works until a very old age, increasingly gaining fame as the last link with the literature of the early 20th century, the “Silver Age of Russian Literature.” In the Soviet Union, Zaitsev, as an emigrant, was subject to censorship ban. In 1987, perestroika made it possible for O. Mikhailov to introduce his name into Russian literature in his homeland.

Almost all of Boris Zaitsev's works take place in Russia; some in Italy. Novel " Gold pattern"(1926) covers the period before the Bolshevik coup and the civil war." House in Passy"(1935) in a typical impressionistic manner for Zaitsev, introduces the reader to the daily life of the first emigration to France. The largest work of this author is the four-volume autobiography of the writer" Gleb's journey"—begins the novel" Zarya"(1937) and ends with the novel" Tree of Life"(1953). Some of Zaitsev's works, for example, life" Venerable Sergius of Radonezh"(1925) and" Athos"(1928) - notes on pilgrimage - are entirely devoted to a religious theme and testify to his understanding of the personal responsibility of a Christian. A special place in the work of this author is occupied by the biographies of writers: I. Turgenev, A. Chekhov, F. Tyutchev and V. Zhukovsky. Among the most significant achievements in Zaitsev’s work undoubtedly belong to him translation of "Hell" from Dante's "Divine Comedy", where he tried to achieve maximum approximation to the original in prose. The translation was begun by him in Russia, revised abroad and published in 1961.

Zaitsev Boris Konstantinovich is a famous Russian writer. He was born in the city of Orel and was a nobleman by birth. Born in the era of revolution, and having endured many sufferings and shocks that fate had in store for him, the writer consciously decides to accept the Orthodox faith and the Church, and will remain faithful to it until the end of his life. He tries not to write about the time in which he lived in his youth, and which passed in chaos, blood and ugliness, contrasting him with harmony, the Church and the light of the Holy Gospel. The author reflected the worldview of Orthodoxy in his stories “Soul”, “Solitude”, “White Light”, written in 1918-1921, where the author regards the revolution as a pattern for carelessness, lack of faith and licentiousness.

Considering all these events and life's troubles, Zaitsev does not become embittered and does not harbor hatred, he peacefully calls on the modern intelligentsia to love, repentance and mercy. The story "St. Nicholas Street", which describes the historical life of Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century, is characterized by the accuracy and depth of the events taking place, where the quiet driver, old man Mikolka, calmly drives his horse along the Arbat, is baptized at the church, and, as the author believes, takes the whole country out of trials that history has prepared for her. The prototype of the old charioteer may be Nicholas the Wonderworker himself, an image imbued with patience and deep faith.

The motive that permeates all the author’s work is humility, which is perceived specifically in the Christian world as the acceptance of everything that God sends with courage and inexhaustible faith. Thanks to the suffering that the revolution brought, as Boris Konstantinovich himself wrote: “He discovered a previously unknown land - “Russia of Holy Rus'.”

Further joyful events are coming - the publication of books, but they are replaced by tragic events: the wife’s son from her first marriage is arrested and killed, the funeral of his father.In 1921 he headed the Writers' Union, in the same year he joined the famine relief committee, and a month later they were arrested. Zaitsev was released a few days later, and he went to his home in Pritykino, and then returned back to Moscow in the spring of 1922, where he fell ill with typhus. Having recovered from his illness, he decides to go abroad in order to improve his health a little. Thanks to Lunacharsky’s patronage, he manages to obtain the right to leave, and he immediately leaves Russia. At first, the writer lives in Germany, where he works fruitfully, and in 1924 he returns to France, to Paris, where he works with Bunin, Merezhkovsky Kuprin, and remains forever in the “capital of emigrants.”

Living in exile, far from his native land, in the work of the “artist” of the word, the theme of the holiness of Russia is the main one.In 1925, the book “Reverend Sergius of Radonezh” was published, which describes the feat of the monk Sergius, who restored the spiritual strength of Holy Rus' during the years of the yoke of the Golden Horde. This book gave strength to Russian emigrants and inspired their creative struggle. She revealed the spirituality of the Russian character and the Orthodox Church. He set the spiritual sobriety of the monk Sergei on the example of clarity, the invisible light emanating from him and the inexhaustible love of the entire Russian people in contrast to the established ideas that everything Russian is “grimacism, foolishness and the hysteria of Dostoevschina.” Zaitsev showed in Sergei the sobriety of the soul, as the manifestation of someone who is loved by all the Russian people.

“More than six centuries now separate us from the time when our great compatriot passed away from earthly life. There is some secret in the fact that such spiritual lights appear in the most difficult times forThe Fatherland and the people are at a time when their support is especially needed...."

In 1929-1932, the Parisian newspaper “Vozrozhdenie” published a series of essays and articles by Zaitsev entitled “A Writer’s Diary” - a response to current events in the cultural, social and religious life of the Russian diaspora. Zaitsev wrote about the literary process in emigration and the metropolis, about philosophers and scientists, about theatrical premieres and exhibitions in Paris, about the church and monasticism, about Russian holiness and the encyclicals of the Pope, about the situation in Soviet Russia, about the kidnapping of General Kutepov, about scandalous revelations a French writer who allegedly visited Mount Athos... “A Writer’s Diary”, combining memoirs and historical and cultural essays,literary critical articles, reviews, theater criticism, journalistic notes, portraitssketches, published in full for the first time in thisbook.

"We are a drop of Russia..."- wrote Boris Konstantinovich Zaitsev, an outstanding writer of Russian diaspora, neorealist, and until the last defended the ideals of Russianspirituality. And the story “Blue Star” is about the love of a hero who embraced the idea of ​​“eternal femininity,” a sign of the literary, artistic and intellectual life of Moscow; and the love novel “The Golden Pattern”, imbued with the light of the joy of being, telling about the fate of a Russian woman who finds herself at the junction of a breaking time and cultivates a “carnal man” within herself, forgetting about the “spiritual”, and sometimes even about the “spiritual man”; and the novel "House in Passy" - about the fate of the Russian intelligentsia in emigration; and the book of memoirs "Moscow" - recreate a vivid image of the pre-revolutionary era with its ideological ferment and richness of spiritual life.

In the novel "House in Passy", written in 1935, the life of Russians was accurately recreatedmigrants in France, where the dramatic fates of Russian exiles coming from different strata of society are united by a single motif of “enlightening suffering.” The main character of the novel “The House in Passy” is the monk Melchizedek, who is the embodiment of Orthodox views on what is happening in the world, on specific events around, problems that bring evil and a lot of suffering to people.

“Russia of Holy Rus'” - Zaitsev wrote this work based on many essays and notes written about the Optina Desert, about the elders, about Saints John of Kronstadt, Seraphim of Sarov, Patriarch Tikhon and other church figures who were in exile, about the Theological Institute and Russian monasteries in France.

In the spring of 1927, Boris Konstantinovich climbed Holy Mount Athos, and in 1935, with his wife, he visited the Valaam Monastery, which then belonged to Finland. These trips were the prerequisite for the appearance of the book of essays “Athos” (1928) and “Valaam” (1936), which later became the best descriptions of these holy places in all literature of the 20th century.

“I spent seventeen unforgettable days on Mount Athos. Living in monasteries, wandering around the peninsula on a mule, on foot, sailing along its shores in a boat, reading books about it, I tried to absorb everything I could. Scientific, philosophical or theological in my writing no. I was an Orthodox man and a Russian artist on Athos and that’s all.”

B. K. Zaitsev

The writer Zaitsev gives readers the opportunity to experience the world of Orthodox monasticism, to experience quiet moments of contemplation with the author himself. The creations of the unique temple of Russian spirituality, the described images of friendly monks and elders - prayer books, are imbued with a poignant feeling of patriotism for the homeland.

Until the last days of his life, he worked fruitfully, published a lot and successfully collaborated with many publishing houses. He writes artistic biographies (long-planned) of people close and dear to him, and writers: “The Life of Turgenev” (1932), “Chekhov” (1954), “Zhukovsky” (1951). In 1964, he published his last story, “The River of Times,” which later gave the title to his last book.

At the age of 91, Zaitsev B.K. died in Paris on January 21, 1972. He was buried in the Saint-Genevieve-des-Bois cemetery in France.

After seven decades of oblivion, the name and books of Boris Konstantinovich Zaitsev, an outstanding master of lyrical prose, who was among the thousands of Russian exiles in 1922, are returning to our culture. His creative legacy is enormous.

Boris Zaitsev is a famous Russian writer and publicist of the early 20th century, who ended his life in exile. Widely known for his works on Christian themes. Critics especially note the “Life of Sergius of Radonezh,” where the writer outlined his point of view on the life of the saint.

Boris Zaitsev: biography

The writer was born into a noble family on January 29 (February 10), 1881 in the city of Orel. Father often took little Boris with him to work at mining factories. However, most of his childhood was spent on the family estate near Kaluga; Zaitsev later described this time as an idyllic observation of nature and communication with relatives. Despite the well-being of his family, Zaitsev also saw another life - a bankrupt nobility, slowly developing factory production, gradually emptying estates, empty peasant fields, and provincial Kaluga. All this will later be reflected in his work, showing how much this environment influenced the formation of the personality of the future writer.

Until the age of 11, Zaitsev was home-schooled, then he was sent to the Kaluga real school, from which he graduated in 1898. The same year he entered the Moscow Technical Institute. However, already in 1899, Zaitsev found himself expelled from the educational institution as a participant in student unrest.

But already in 1902, Boris Konstantinovich entered the Faculty of Law, which, however, also did not graduate. This is due to the fact that the writer leaves for Italy, where he is fascinated by antiquities and art.

The beginning of creativity

Zaitsev Boris Konstantinovich began writing at the age of 17. And already in 1901 he published the story “On the Road” in the magazine “Courier”. From 1904 to 1906 he worked as a correspondent for Pravda magazine. His stories “Dream” and “Mist” were published in the same magazine. In addition, the mystical story “Quiet Dawns” was published in the New Path magazine.

The writer's first collection of stories was published in 1903. It was dedicated to describing the life of the noble intelligentsia, vegetating in the outback, the destruction of noble estates, the devastation of fields, and the destructive and terrible city life.

Even at the beginning of his creative career, Zaitsev was lucky enough to meet such eminent writers as A.P. Chekhov and L.N. Andreev. Fate brought the writer together with Anton Pavlovich in Yalta in 1900, and a year later he met Andreev. Both writers provided serious assistance in the beginning of Zaitsev's literary career.

At this time, Boris Konstantinovich lives in Moscow, is a member of the Literary and Artistic Circle, publishes the magazine “Zori”, and is a member of the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature.

Travel to Italy

In 1904, Boris Zaitsev first went to this country. This country greatly impressed the writer, and later he even called it his spiritual homeland. He spent a lot of time there in the pre-war years. Many Italian impressions formed the basis of Zaitsev’s works. So a collection called “Raphael” was published in 1922, which included a series of essays and impressions about Italy.

In 1912, Zaitsev married. Soon his daughter Natalya is born.

First World War

During the First World War, Boris Zaitsev graduated from the Alexander Military School. And as soon as the February Revolution ended, he was promoted to officer. However, he did not make it to the front due to pneumonia. And he lived during the war on the Pritykino estate with his wife and daughter.

After the end of the war, Zaitsev and his family returned to Moscow, where he was immediately appointed chairman of the All-Russian Writers' Union. At one time he also worked part-time at the Writers' Co-operative Shop.

Emigration

In 1922, Zaitsev fell ill with typhus. The illness was severe, and for speedy rehabilitation he decides to go abroad. He receives a visa and goes first to Berlin and then to Italy.

Boris Zaitsev is an emigrant writer. It was from this time that the foreign stage in his work began. By this time, he had already felt the strong influence of the philosophical views of N. Berdyaev and this dramatically changed the creative direction of the writer. If earlier Zaitsev’s works related to pantheism and paganism, now a Christian orientation began to be clearly visible in them. For example, the story “The Golden Pattern”, the collection “Renaissance”, essays about the lives of the saints “Athos” and “Valaam”, etc.

World War II

In Boris Zaitsev himself, he turns to his diary entries and begins publishing them. Thus, the newspaper “Vozrozhdenie” publishes his “Days” series. However, already in 1940, when Germany occupied France, all Zaitsev’s publications ceased. For the rest of the war, nothing was said about the writer’s work in newspapers and magazines. Boris Konstantinovich himself remained aloof from politics and war. As soon as Germany was defeated, he again returned to his previous religious and philosophical themes and in 1945 published the story “King David.”

Last years of life and death

In 1947, Boris Konstantinovich Zaitsev began working for the Parisian newspaper “Russian Thought”. In the same year he became chairman of the Union of Russian Writers in France. This position remained with him until the last days of his life. Such meetings were common in European countries where the Russian creative intelligentsia emigrated after the February Revolution.

In 1959, he began corresponding with Boris Pasternak, while simultaneously collaborating with the Munich almanac “Bridges”.

In 1964, the story “River of Time” by Boris Zaitsev was published. This is the last published work of the writer, completing his creative path. A collection of the author's stories with the same name will be published later.

However, Zaitsev’s life did not stop there. In 1957, his wife suffered a severe stroke, the writer remained with her inseparably.

The writer himself died at the age of 91 in Paris on January 21, 1972. His body was buried in the Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois cemetery, where many Russian emigrants who moved to France are buried.

Boris Zaitsev: books

Zaitsev’s work is usually divided into two large stages: pre-emigrant and post-emigrant. This is not due to the fact that the writer’s place of residence has changed, but to the fact that the semantic orientation of his works has radically changed. If in the first period the writer turned more to pagan and pantheistic motives, describing the darkness of the revolution that captured the souls of people, then in the second period he devoted all his attention to Christian themes.

Let us note that the most famous works belong specifically to the second stage of Zaitsev’s work. In addition, it was the emigrant time that became the most fruitful in the author’s life. Thus, over the years, about 30 books have been published and approximately 800 more works have appeared on the pages of magazines.

This is mainly due to the fact that Zaitsev concentrated all his efforts on literary activities. In addition to writing his works, he is engaged in journalism and translations. Also in the 50s, the writer was a member of the Commission for the translation of the New Testament into Russian.

The trilogy “Gleb’s Journey” became especially famous. This is an autobiographical work in which the writer describes the childhood and youth of a man born at a turning point for Russia. The biography ends in 1930, when the hero realizes his connection with the holy great martyr Gleb.

"Reverend Sergius of Radonezh"

Boris Zaitsev turned to the lives of saints. Sergius of Radonezh became a hero for him, through whose example he showed the transformation of an ordinary person into a saint. Zaitsev managed to create a more vivid and lively image of the saint than he is described in other lives, thereby making Sergius more understandable to the common reader.

We can say that this work embodies the religious searches of the author himself. Zaitsev himself understood for himself how a person can achieve holiness through gradual spiritual transformation. The writer himself, like his hero, went through several stages on the path to realizing true holiness, and all his steps were reflected in his work.

ZAYTSEV, BORIS KONSTANTINOVICH(1881–1972), Russian prose writer, playwright. Emigrated in 1922. Born January 29 (February 10), 1881 in Orel. He spent his childhood in Kaluga, where in 1898 Zaitsev graduated from a real school. For participating in student riots, he was expelled from the Moscow Technical School, where his father, plant director Yu.P. Guzhona, assigned him. He studied at the Mining Institute in St. Petersburg and at the Faculty of Law of Moscow University (did not graduate). Made his debut in 1901 with a short story On the road, came out in 1906 Stories. Book 1, which brought fame to the author. Zaitsev wrote about his creative development in 1916: “I started with naturalistic stories; by the time of publication in the press - the so-called craze. “impressionism”, then the lyrical and romantic element appears. Lately there has been a growing tendency towards realism.”

The specificity of Zaitsev’s literary position was determined by his intermediate position between the participants of the literary association “Sreda”, firmly committed to the precepts of Russian realistic classics, and by a clear attraction to symbolism, which largely determined the problems of his first works and their construction in a form called by the author “plotless story” -poem." In Zaitsev's early collections ( Stories. Book 2, 1909) the influence of K. Hamsun is noticeable. At the same time, already at the initial stage of creativity, the strong influence of Chekhov is noticeable, predetermining the choice of the hero: this is an intellectual who is always at odds with the surrounding prosaic world, has not given up dreams of a different, truly spiritualized form of existence and is able, despite his painful everyday life, to strive to an unattainable high ideal. The presence of Chekhov is especially noticeable in Zaitsev’s dramaturgy, where the play stands out Lanin Estate(1914), which became the directorial debut of E.B. Vakhtangov.

In 1904, Zaitsev visited Italy for the first time, lived there for a long time in the years before the First World War and considered this country his second spiritual homeland. Italian impressions suggested the plots of several of his stories (collection Raphael, 1922, which is accompanied by a series of essays Italy, published since 1907) and continued to fuel his creativity until the end of the writer’s life.

Zaitsev more than once called the story his main work of the Russian period Blue star(1918), which he regarded as “farewell to the past.” The story recreates the love story of the hero, a dreamer and seeker of the highest spiritual truth, for a girl who resembles Turgenev’s heroines. The background of this love is the intellectual and artistic life of the Moscow environment, which, in anticipation of approaching formidable historical events, is trying to find strong moral supports and spiritual guidelines for itself, but already feels that its entire established way of life is leaving and a period of severe upheavals lies ahead. This motif is also present in the collection of stories, sometimes close to prose poems, Street St. Nicholas(1923), Zaitsev’s first book to be published after his exodus from Russia.

During the First World War, Zaitsev graduated from the Alexander Military School and immediately after the February Revolution he was promoted to officer, but did not go to the front and from August 1917 to 1921 lived in his Kaluga estate of Pritykino. Upon returning to Moscow, he was elected chairman of the Moscow branch of the All-Russian Writers' Union, worked in the Cooperative Writers' Shop and in Studio Italiano. Having received permission to go abroad due to illness, Zaitsev settled in Berlin, from where he moved to Paris.

By this time, he had already experienced the strong influence of the religious philosophy of V. Solovyov and N. Berdyaev, which, according to his later testimony, pierced the “pantheistic garment of youth” and gave a strong “impetus to faith.” Zaitsev’s new worldview is evidenced by the “life portraits” he wrote in the 1920s ( Alexey is a man of God, Prevenor Sergius of Radonezh, both 1925) and essays about journeys to holy places ( Athos, 1928, Balaam, 1936).

The same sentiments prevail in novels dating back to the period of emigration. Among them stands out Gold pattern(1926), where the heroes, having experienced all the horrors of the recent hard times, come to the idea that “Russia bears the punishment of redemption... There is no need to regret the past. There is so much sinfulness and unworthiness in him.”

Autobiographical tetralogy Gleb's journey(1937–1953) recreates the hero’s childhood and youth, which coincided with the time of an impending turning point in the destinies of Russia. Having led the hero along familiar paths that lead from the earthly to the eternal, Zaitsev breaks off the narrative when it reached the 1930s, and the hero felt the providential meaning contained in the coincidence of his name with the name of the great martyr, especially revered by the Russian Church. Often compared in criticism with The life of Arsenyev Zaitsev’s tetralogy actually has common features with the work of I.A. Bunin, although the sensual element is muted in it, which is almost absent even in the third volume - Youth(1950), which tells the story of the difficult love of Gleb and Ellie (under this name Zaitsev’s wife V.A. Oreshnikov is depicted; he is dedicated to her and V.N. Bunina The Tale of Vera, 1968, and Another Faith, 1969).

Summarizing the experience of Russian emigration in an article dedicated to the 25th anniversary of his departure from Moscow, Zaitsev expressed the main theme of everything he created after he left his homeland: “We are a drop of Russia... no matter how poor and powerless we are, never to anyone Let us not give in to the highest values, which are the values ​​of the spirit.” This motive also dominates his journalism (especially noteworthy is the series of articles in the newspaper “Vozrozhdenie” in the fall of 1939 – spring of 1940, subsequently published under the general title Days), and especially in memoir prose, which occupied the main place in the last period of the writer’s work. Books of memories by Zaitsev Moscow(1939) and Distant(1965) contain a holistic and vivid portrait of the pre-revolutionary era, captured in its ideological ferment and in the richness of its spiritual life. Zaitsev showed himself to be a true master of literary portraiture, often, as in the chapters about Bunin or Z. Gippius, summing up the complex relationships that connected the memoirist with these people for decades.

While in exile, Zaitsev also created novelized biographies of three Russian classics: Life of Turgenev (1932), Zhukovsky (1951), Chekhov(1954), which attempted to reconstruct the spiritual world and creative process of each of these writers.

Zaitsev owns the translations Vatheka W. Beckford (1912), Ada Dante (rhythmic prose, 1913–1918, published 1961), Temptations of Saint Anthony And Simple heart G. Flaubert.